


Those Nights (When You Crave Someone To Be There At Dawn)

by kaijuvenom



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Drunk Sex, Implied/Referenced Sex, M/M, Time Skips, Trans Elim Garak, again just referenced, alcohol use, and Ive never written Cardassian smut before, but maybe eventually, i havent written smut in like two years, my trans Garak agenda transcends whether or not it’s actually relevant, so it was just Too Much, that literally never comes up but, this is just short and little bc i wanted to make it nsfw and then i got overwhelmed, this is very sfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:54:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25565428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuvenom/pseuds/kaijuvenom
Summary: Garak tells Julian about the "one night stand", as he so graciously called it, he had with Dukat way back on Terok Nor. Julian is probably wondering why he asked in the first place.
Relationships: Dukat/Elim Garak, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak
Comments: 4
Kudos: 47





	Those Nights (When You Crave Someone To Be There At Dawn)

**Author's Note:**

> *synth starts* *to the tune of 'i dont understand, bitch'* i dont know the lore, i dont know the lore bitch, i dont know the lore, i dont know the lore bitch *offkey kazoo*

“Well, my dear Doctor, I think we should first preface this little story of mine by quoting an ancient and very wise Earth man named Elie Wiesel.”

Julian interrupted him--as he was apt to do whenever Garak began to tell a story Julian had been the one to beg him to tell in the first place. “You know Elie Wiesel?” 

“Of course, my dear. I’m very familiar with all of his works, however endlessly depressing they may be. Human history is simply _filled_ with genocide, is it not?” 

“I’m sorry, but are you not the one currently telling a story of your past that took place on Terok Nor, a mining station which was built on Bajoran slave labor during your occupation of Bajor?”

“Doctor, do you want to hear this or not?” Garak asked, a bit affronted by the incorrectness of the statement: ‘ _your’ occupation of Bajor,_ but he chose not to comment on it or attempt to correct him.

Julian waved his hand, allowing him to continue. 

“Well, as the aforementioned Elie Wiesel stated, quite eloquently for a human, if I might add, _the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference_. Although it doesn’t much matter what the origin of the quote is when it is so devastatingly applicable to that night. Of course, I won’t lie,” he paused when Julian snorted at that, giving him a withering glare, “I never exactly felt indifference towards Dukat. I always felt something. Certainly, I knew what it wasn’t. It wasn’t love at all, not quite hate in its most basic sense, but it most certainly had aspects of both.”

********

There was grudging respect for him, for his loyalty to Cardassia, his unbridled confidence (arrogance), and so on, but the most prominent aspect of Garak’s negative feelings regarding him was due to how incredibly obnoxious he was. Garak loathed him, and he knew Dukat felt the same.

He knew this because it was a common sentiment expressed whenever they crossed paths on the station. One of Dukat’s favorite pastimes seemed to be actively seeking out Garak for the sole purpose of antagonizing him, and Garak had never been one to flatter himself, but every time Dukat seemed to materialize out of thin air for no reason other than to berate him, he couldn’t help but think of that quote. Dukat was anything but indifferent towards Garak.

And there was, of course, another point in favor of what Garak had begun to suspect, one which made everything seem so obvious and yet somehow even more clouded; the way he argued with Garak. It was the same way any Cardassian would argue with a potential partner, the same way Garak knew full well was flirting. Hell, looking back on it, now with the years of experience he’d had with Julian, it seemed even more stupidly obvious than it already had. And Dukat was most certainly not Julian, not human, so he _had_ to know he was flirting, he knew full well what he was doing, he _had_ to, so that brought up the chance that maybe he was somehow attempting to manipulate Garak, get him to lower his guard enough to finally shut him up for good. Not that Garak would ever let his guard down anywhere near Dukat, but it was still a creative idea. If it was Dukat’s plan.

The only other possibility Garak could see was that perhaps Dukat was truly completely unaware of what he was doing. His feelings (whatever they may be, although Garak would be hesitant to call it love, lust would be more like it if anything), could simply be so repressed in his apparent hatred for Garak that he couldn’t see what he was doing. 

All in all, Garak really didn’t have the faintest clue. Not that he minded, of course. Life on Terok Nor was incredibly boring. He’d take any distraction he could get. Even if it was a mystery as strange as this one was. 

“I _really_ do detest you, Elim,” Dukat was saying, and the kanar must’ve been affecting Garak more than he’d originally thought, because he didn’t even object to the use of his first name. He took another long drink from his glass, setting it on the table before responding. 

“If you detest me so much, why don’t you…” he paused, frowning to himself as he tried to come up with a coherent thought, let alone a coherent response. “Why don’t you… do something about it.”

“Oh, I’d _love_ to,” Dukat said, leaning against the table, far too close to Garak then he would normally be. “Although I do think we’d both be taken care of, but you know what, Elim? I think I’d risk it.”

“How _terribly_ flattering.”

Garak spun his mug around the table, feeling altogether very satisfied with himself. “Perhaps your dislike for me is the result of jealousy, Dukat.” 

“Jealous? Of _you_?”

Zoning out a drunken Dukat’s ranting and raving was something Garak was well-versed in, highly accustomed to, and something he did so often that he very rarely noticed he was even doing it. He said little else of value in his mixture of death threats and various attempts at blaming his inability to manage a simple mining station on Garak, so the zoning out happened almost immediately. 

Eventually, he seemed to have worn himself out, because he left, storming away to the other side of the bar, no doubt to go about spreading as many lies about Garak’s perceived incompetence to anyone willing to listen. 

Not that Garak had any interest in caring. Two could play that game, in fact, two were playing that game. Not a day went by in which Garak didn’t either spread or perpetuate rumors from something as pernicious as, ‘he’s running the black market that sells food to the Bajorans’, to things that were downright petty. Quark ate up his almost entirely untrue stories and spread them around the station like wildfire. 

It was all in good fun, of course. Dukat was predictable, in what he tended to say about Garak, how he apparently thought of him, et cetera, et cetera, and Garak had the utmost confidence he could know exactly what Dukat would be doing or thinking at any given moment. But later that night, roughly an hour, or four, or exactly one and a quarter more bottles of kanar, Dukat did something that was both unpredictable and completely unwelcome, in Garak’s humble opinion. 

He came back to Garak’s table, and said in a soft, only _slightly_ slurred voice, “I… apologize for what I said earlier.”

Garak simply stared. He wasn’t sure how to respond to that. For as long as he had known Dukat, he had _never_ apologized to anyone, not once. Although Garak supposed he could easily blame this on the kanar. It would be the most reasonable explanation. 

“How uncharacteristic of you, Dukat,” he finally said, because what the hell else was he meant to say to that declaration? A man who has loathed you for years has too much to drink and says something possibly construed as kind to you for the first time, how do you respond? Tain hadn’t exactly covered that subject in Garak’s training. 

“It’s the kanar,” Dukat said, waving his glass around before setting it on Garak’s table, leaning forward. Of course it was, but that didn’t mean Dukat needed to say that. Again, how uncharacteristic for him. 

“I need to speak with you.”

Garak frowned, glancing around before leaning in covertly. “Is that not what we’re doing right at this moment?” 

“In private. Alone. Without company. Somewhere quiet,” Dukat elaborated.

Deciding not to point out the obvious fact that Dukat had stated the same thing four times, Garak shrugged, standing up and pushing his chair in. It was highly likely Dukat was acting so strangely and asking to talk to him alone because he was planning to kill him, he wasn’t actually drunk, or at least not as drunk as he was acting, and the whole thing was a ruse to get Grak alone.

But his curiosity got the better of him as he followed Dukat out the door. Besides, Dukat had much more pride in his career and life in general than to throw it all away on his petty feud with Garak, despite what his threats might say. The chances of Garak being killed were relatively low. Still present, but low.

He followed Dukat without complaint, letting him take them out of the bar and to a rather isolated corner of the station. Not entirely isolated, anyone walking past might glance over and see them, but Dukat didn’t seem to mind much. Or at all. He was staring at Garak in the dim light of their mostly uninhabited corner in a way that Garak had never expected to be stared at, especially not by Dukat.

It was the kanar. Garak would accept no other possible explanation. It was lonely on Terok Nor, it was cold and full of danger and riots and assassination attempts, and Cardassians weren’t any less likely to make terrible decisions than any other species after a bit too much to drink. 

********

“I have a question,” Julian once again interrupted, holding his finger up.

“Dear, I’m beginning to think you don’t _want_ to hear this story,” Garak said, resisting the very human urge he had to roll his eyes.

“I’ve only interrupted once!”

“Twice. The first time being-”

“The first time doesn’t count, you hadn’t even started yet!” Julian protested, crossing his arms in an overdramatic display of annoyance. 

“Three times, now, Doctor.”

Julian pouted but gestured for him to go on after a minute of giving him petty silence, and it made Garak want to lean over and kiss him, but he refrained.

“As I was saying…”

********

“I still don’t like you,” Dukat stated as if that would change the fact that he and Garak had been kissing. In this semi-public corner of Terok Nor. It didn’t, but Garak appreciated the effort. The feelings of hatred were mutual.

Someone walked by their previously abandoned corner, and Dukat shrank further into the shadows as if being seen with Garak could possibly be any worse than the fact that, at this exact time, he had three separate Bajoran mistresses. Although, were they really mistresses if Garak truly didn’t believe Dukat _actually_ had a wife and children?  
Because he didn’t, and he would stick with that belief until proven otherwise. It was completely unthinkable that any Cardassian would voluntarily choose to spend their life with Dukat, and have _multiple_ children with him. Then again, Garak was in no position to judge. It was the kanar, he kept telling himself, refusing to believe he would ever be caught dead or alive doing this if his head were more clear, if he were a little less lonely, a little less cold, a little less… well, a little less _whatever_ he was. 

There were plenty of reasons to stop this before it went too far, plenty of reasons and potential lies and excuses to remove himself from this situation, but there was no way in hell he’d be taking advantage of any of those wonderful options. Instead, he chose to accelerate this to an (admittedly, later regrettable) level.

“Perhaps we should move somewhere… a little more private?” Garak offered, once the footfalls of the figure passing by them had disappeared from earshot. “My quarters are close to here.”

“I refuse to step foot in your quarters,” Dukat responded, and Garak clenched his teeth, wanting to backhand him across the face for being so obstinate. 

“Fine. Yours, then.”

“I’m not letting _you_ step foot in _my_ quarters.” 

Garak really hated this man. 

“Then what, pray tell, do you propose?” 

“We need a…” Dukat hesitated like he’d forgotten the appropriate word for whatever it was that he was trying to express, then snapped his fingers in achievement when he apparently remembered what he’d been about to say, “a neutral option.”

“So…” Garak began, his brain working about seventy percent of its normal speed as he attempted to think properly, “a slightly more abandoned corner?”

“Precisely.”

Garak _really_ hated this man. How many times could he think and/or say that before it finally put him off the idea of fucking him? Apparently more times than he had already, and that was, quite honestly, a shame, because he wasn’t planning on saying or thinking it any more than he already had at any point in the discernible future. 

They did succeed in locating a more abandoned corner, and what ensued next was something Garak would like to keep between himself and the Cardassian voles which were rummaging around in the wiring of the wall behind them.

********

“So that’s it? It was that one time, and then you went on your merry way?” Julian was giving him that look that clearly stated, ‘I absolutely do not believe you and I know there is more to this story that you aren’t telling me’.

Garak smiled, shaking his head. “I believe there are some things that must remain a mystery, my dear.”

And honestly, that was about the same as saying it happened several more times after that, And a few before. And then some more in between. 

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on the [twitter](https://twitter.com/kaijuvenom)  
> and also the [tumblr](https://kaijuvenom.tumblr.com/)


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